Leads Per Car Trending Down & % Of Inventory With No Leads Increasing, Now What Lotwalk.com

·11 min·1 clip

Half of a dealer's inventory has no leads, and leads per car are dropping—what happens next?

Jasen Rice hosts this episode of the LotParty Podcast, focusing on a concerning trend in automotive dealerships. He shares screens from a current client's data to illustrate the issue. The dealer started with Lotpop in mid-December and has shown consistent performance, with sales volume increasing from a pace of less than 100 cars to over 160. Inventory levels have dropped from 137 to 93 units, indicating a need for replenishment. Fresh inventory has risen from 74% to 88%, but this masks a problem: leads per car have declined from 2.5-2.6 to lower levels. More critically, the percentage of cars with no leads has spiked to as high as 58%, currently at 48%. Rice notes that 59 units are in the fresh bucket, with 38 having no leads, which could impact future sales rates. He explains that dealers should not wait for new leads but instead use 'switch leads'—active leads on sold cars that can be redirected to current inventory. For example, a 21 Chevy Traverse with zero leads has three switch opportunities, and a Silverado has ten. Rice demonstrates this with an F-150 that has eight switch leads from customers seeking large pickups under $30,000. He emphasizes that lead management should be integrated with inventory management, advising dealers to manage leads based on lot issues like aged or high-dollar cars, not based on lead age or CRM schedules. The episode promotes the Lotwalk tool for virtual lot walks and the Work the Facts book for tracking metrics. Rice concludes by encouraging dealers to adapt to market changes where data can be skewed by high pricing and wholesale volatility.

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